Green Tea Health Benefits - How Many Cups Are Enough?

I have read that 4 to 9 cups of green tea is needed on a daily basis for health benefits. Does this mean 4 to 9 8oz cups, each with a teabag in it? Or does one 16oz cup with 1 bag count as two?

Answer:

The thing that really matters is the antioxidant content, not the number of cups. The higher the tea quality, the less you need to drink.

The highest quality tea are those young tea buds harvested during a short window of 6 weeks in spring. Numerous scientific studies have shown that 1 gram of such tea buds contain 100 milligrams of antioxidants or more.

3 grams can be infused 3 times to make 3 cups of tea. In other words, if you are drinking quality, 3 cups will give you 300 milligrams of antioxidants.

Now, this is equivalent to the amount of antioxidants found in 1.5 liters of red wine and 3 kilograms of apples!

So in summary, if you drink quality, 3 cups of tea buds per day will be sufficient.

Also, like all things in life, green tea is best consumed in moderation. This will protect you from the side effects of drinking green tea.

Many tea sellers claim that you need to drink many cups of green tea to benefit from it. This is not true, as scientific studies have shown that even a couple of cups of green tea a day can make a difference.

Green Tea Diet Weight Loss - How Much To Drink?

How much Green Tea should one drink per day for the best affects of weight loss such as 2 or 3 cups? Also, is it better to drink the tea alone or during the time you are eating? Thanks so much.

Answer:

There is no easy answer as to how much green tea to drink. Generally speaking, the higher your tea quality, the less you need to drink. This is because higher quality tea contains higher amount of EGCG and caffeine which has been shown to promote various weight loss effects, of which fat burning and fast metabolism have been found to be particularly significant.

In the following article, I concluded (as a layman would) from various green tea human trials conducted so far that an effective dosage of EGCG is 300 to 700 milligrams per day, with the lower end requiring significant amount of caffeine. This level of recommendation is no different from other sources when consuming green tea for general health purposes.

The answer really varies. For high quality loose green tea, you are talking about 100 milligrams per gram. That means 3 grams of tea leaves multiple-infused 3 times (i.e. 3 cups) will give you 300 milligrams. 3 to 6 cups a day will do the job.

(This is what Ellen did when she lost 25 pounds in 6 months, and still do.)

Different types of loose tea will do different things. Those harvested earliest in spring (i.e. the highest grade) will contain a lot more EGCG and caffeine than a late harvest. But you have to factor in the price. A high quality Dragon well green tea will be better than Sencha, which is harvested later, but will cost more.

Which loose green tea you choose to drink is a matter of personal choice. The thing to remember is not to fall into the classic consumer trap of buying flavoured teas, decaffeinated teas (unless CO2 decaf) or instant or bottled green tea. As this article shows, EGCG content can be as low as 10% of loose green tea if you drink the wrong type of tea.

I would also avoid teabags as EGCG is a highly active antioxidant, and when leaves are broken into small pieces and packed into teabag, EGCG doesn't keep for long.

To give you an example on how vulnerable EGCG is, HQ's Dragon Well tea is packed in airtight bag and kept in a freezer straightafter harvesting. If his loose tea were to expose to ambient, it would lose its favours in just 2 months.

So the short answer to your question is 3 to 6 cups (or 3 to 6 grams) of high quality loose green tea, and much more if you are drinking lower quality tea.

Drinking green tea with meals is done in human trials and have been found to help weight loss. My guess is that it helps to block nutrient absorption and may also neutralise any free radicals that may be generated during the digestion process (as it has been found that eating red meat with wine is good for health).

My only concern is that green tea does upset the stomach and if that is a concern, it probably makes more sense to complement your meal with an oolong tea (especially a more oxidised variety), which is more soothing to the stomach.

This is usually done in Southern China, where people drink jasmine tea or oolong tea with their meals.

In addition, oolong tea has been discovered to help fat excretion and also promote other weight loss effects.

How Much Tea Leaves To Use For Maximum Health?

by Matt
(Italy)

When several studies suggest that to reach health benefits we should drink more than four cups of green tea every day, does it mean that for each cup we have to use new leaves or is it enough a multiple infusion of the same leaves?

Thank you again.

Answer:

Matt, a lot of health benefits studies were conducted in Asia, where the people drink loose green tea and makes 3 infusion out of the same leaves.

The most important consumers can rely on for health benefits are their taste buds. If the tea tastes rich and flavourful, chances are there are nutrients.

This is because caffeine tastes bitter, catechins taste astringent, and theanine - the most prized chemicals of green tea that is the most closely correlated with its quality - tastes unami, which may be described as along the line of brothy, fresh, sweet and lively.

Green Tea, Fat Burning and Dosage

Hi, I have Now Foods Green Tea where 1 400mg capsule contains a minimum of 99% Total Polyphenols, 80% Total Catechins, and 50% EGCg.

As I have seen the capsule formulation for weight loss is not as good as they say, I want to use natural green tea like yours, but I don't know which grade contains how much polyphenols, EGCg and Catechins.

Jipin Grade 50 grams SamplerGolden Wizard

What ingredients per 1 gram this tea has?

Is 1 gram of Golden Wizard like about 2.5 capsules?

I want to take 400mg of Green Tea daily that means I will use about 0.5 Grams of yours Tea? Or there is another measurement?

I'm interesting in weight loss. If you have any recommendations, can you tell me?

Answer:

Jim, thank you for your question. I will try to help the best I can.

The Golden Wizard is an oolong tea, so it is probably not what you want.

I understand you are looking to consume the equal of about 400 milligrams of green tea extract for weight loss.

For high grade green tea, the rough rule of thumb is that 1 gram contains approximately 10% antioxidants - about 100 milligrams.

So the equal of 400 milligrams of catechins is about 4 grams of tea leaves per day.

This is a rough guide, higher grades harvested early in the season, which have richer taste, will contain more antioxidants.

This is because the Chinese and Japanese scientists have long discovered that the youngest tea buds contain the highest concentration of catechins and caffeine - both compounds are very good at promoting weight loss.

I can recommend three green teas for you to experiment:

Tribute Dragon Well tea - this green tea comes directly from a tea garden serving the Chinese White House... very classy and popular. Past customers have found it promotes weight loss.

Yellow Mountain tea - this green tea is lower budget and is harvested later. But it is good for beginners because it comes pre-packed (3 grams each). A good starting point. Will also have weight loss effects.

The 2009 crop has not been harvested yet and will only be ready to ship end of this month.

How Much Is "One Cup of Tea"?

I have problems with my digestion after drinking green/white tea. I used to drink 1 liter per day for 3 weeks.

Now I read that you recommend 3-6 cups as totally sufficient, but how much is one cup??

Greets

ImI

Answer:

ImI, the 3 to 6 cups recommendation for green/white tea usually refers to an 8 ounce cup, about 250 millimeters.

When drinking a quality loose green tea, this usually goes with 3 grams of leaves, which would yield (depending on the quality of tea leaves) about 10% antioxidants.

Infused over 3 times, this comes up to about 300 milligrams of antioxidants.

This is a standard recommendation. The actual brewing wiil depend on the type of tea. Many Chinese practioner recommends a ratio of 1 to 50 i.e. 3 grams of leaves to 150 millimeters, or 5 ounce cup. Personally I found this too much leaves, too little water.

You need only to drink a smaller of amount of higher quality tea leaves, as they have greater durability (infused many times) and taste flavorful and fresh.

Too Much Green Tea

by Wayne

I drink 2 litres of bottled green tea daily. Is that too much?

Answer:

2 litres of tea is roughly equal to 8 to 10 normal size cups a day. This is not unusual for a seasoned tea drinker (their bodies have adjusted to it), and I myself do drink that much daily. So the number of cups are fine, but it is the quality of green tea that I have a concern.

Bottled green tea can contain a lot of chemicals and quite little nutrients. Drinking too much can also lead to too much caffeine and fluroide.